Under health care reform legislation President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law today, individuals will be required to have some form of health insurance by 2014 or pay a fine.

In a story published today, Miller tells the Macomb Daily she believes the individual mandate is beyond the federal government's authority.

"There is enormous concern, justifiably so, with Congress authorizing a plan to force people to buy health insurance," Miller told the newspaper. "I think there's great merit in the argument that this is unconstitutional."

"This bill is heading our country in the wrong direction — from the $500 billion cut in Medicare, to the taxes on the job-creation sector, to veterans who will have their benefits cut, and to the unconstitutional mandates placed on average citizens," she said.

Roughly a dozen state attorneys general -- including Cox -- have promised to sue the federal government over the mandate once President Obama signs the bill, saying they're prepared to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

"Congress' attempt to force Michigan families to buy health insurance -- or else -- raises serious constitutional concerns," Cox said in a released statement. "We will fight to defend the individual rights and freedoms of Michigan citizens against this radical overreach by the federal government."

So, is the individual mandate unconstitutional?

Probably not, according to Christopher Beam of Slate online magazine.

March 22, Slate.com: The 10th Amendment states that "[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." The federal government, however, can claim two Constitutional justifications for mandating health care. One is the right to regulate interstate commerce, which includes any business that operates across state lines. (Even if not all health insurance companies operate in more than one state, Congress can still regulate them as long as that regulation is part of a comprehensive interstate scheme,according to the Supreme Court.) Congress also has the Constitutional right to tax. Just as Congress taxes polluting companies for imposing a burden on other people, it could tax Americans who don't buy health insurance for doing the same. As if to emphasize the point, the fine for not buying insurance is levied by the IRS.

In a Sunday piece for the Washington Post, Georgetown University professor of constitutional law Randy Barnett agreed that the Supreme Court would likely reference the Constitution's interstate commerce clause if it reviewed the legislation, but pointed out the individual mandate is unprecedented because it extends the clause's power "beyond economic activity, to economic inactivity."

March 21, WashingtonPost.com: If you choose to drive a car, then maybe you can be made to buy insurance against the possibility of inflicting harm on others. But making you buy insurance merely because you are alive is a claim of power from which many Americans instinctively shrink.

Experts say the legal challenges aren't likely to be successful, and critics argue they're designed to keep the issue -- and outrage -- alive until November elections.

"These lawsuits will be thrown out by the federal courts," Wayne State University constitutional law professor Robert Sedler told The Detroit News. "First-year law students know that, the lawyers in the Department of Attorney General know (that) -- this is political posturing."

Meanwhile, a group of activists, legislators and community leaders met
in Royal Oak yesterday to kick off a petition drive that aims to put a
measure before Michigan voters asking whether they
want to exempt the state from the federal health care overhaul.